Tag Archives: pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai’s

Malala Yousafzai (Pashto: ملاله یوسفزۍ‎, born 1998) is an eighth-grade Pakistani Pashtun student from the town of Mingora in Swat District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, known for being a children’s rights activist. At 13 years old she championed the cause of the people of Swat by blogging for the BBC under a pseudonym about the atrocities of the Tehrik-i-Taliban regime. The international children’s advocacy group KidsRights Foundation included Yousafzai among the nominees for the International Children’s Peace Prize, making her the first Pakistani girl nominated for the award. South African Nobel laureate Desmund Tutu announced the nominations during a 2011 ceremony in Amsterdam, Holland, but Yousafzai did not win the prize.

In October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in her neck and head by a gunman in an apparent assassination attempt. According to the Pakistani news agency NNI, the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) have claimed responsibility for the attack. for details Attack on Malala Yousafzai

Childhood

Yousafzai lives in Mingora, Swat, which was occupied by the Taliban from March 2009 until May 2009, when the Pakistani Army regained control of the area. During the conflict she wrote a diary for the BBC under the pseudonym “Gul Makai”, in which she described the deeds of the Taliban in Swat.

Awards

For her courageous and outstanding services for the promotion of peace under extremely hostile conditions, she was awarded the first National Peace Award by the Pakistani government on 19 December 2011. Speaking to the media afterwards, she expressed her intent to form a political party focused on education. The Government Girls Secondary School, Mission Road, was immediately renamed Malala Yousufzai Government Girls Secondary School in her honour.

She was named after Malalai of Maiwand, a Pashtun poet and warrior woman.

Shooting

On 9 October 2012, a gunman walked up to a bus taking children home from school in Pakistan’s Swat Valley and shot Malala and the girl who identified her. Malala was shot twice, once in the head and once in the neck, but her wounds were not life-threatening. Ihsanullah Ihsan, the chief spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, officially claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that she is symbolic of obscenity and has spread negative propaganda.